The Quiet Place
by AlienZombies
Summary: The world is clean but not perfect. There are a million things to say, and a million things left silent. post-game NICKXELLIS


I'm just writing whatever inspires me right now. I wasn't sure what name to give this, either. I was stuck on "Parallel" for a while, "Unsaid" and "A Study of Collision" but I stuck with this.

I debated with myself whether or not to post it, but here goes. Let me know how you feel.

**The Quiet Place**

"What do you figure we're gonna do?" Ellis asked as he drank some more of Nick's Pepsi. "When we get to Nevada?"

"I have a place," Nick said quietly, watching the world rush by through his foggy window. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to look out and see a horizon, to see the rocky outline of a mountain, a cityscape. He was too used to the four concrete walls of the evacuation camp. "I have a place, up in Seattle. Guess I'll probably have to hitchhike."

"Shit," Ellis said appreciatively. "Really? That's 'bout as far North and West as you can get. I ain't never been so far."

"What?"

"What what?" Ellis blinked innocently. He handed over Nick's soda, but Nick didn't touch it.

"Who said you're coming with me?" Nick said, his voice a little hard.

"Well, shucks," Ellis muttered, toying around with his half-eaten pretzels, looking appropriately abashed. "I'm awful sorry for assumin', but I just figured, what cause you been kissin' me and all, and butterin' me up all real sweet-like and everythin', what that we'd be stickin' together…"

"I haven't been buttering you up. What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Shit, Nick…" Ellis ducked his head and clutched his bag of pretzels tightly in his hands. "If you're gonna be all ornery about it, I guess I'll just hop off in Nevada and find somewhere to go…"

Nick stared out the window again, his lips pursed together. The long black line of the road was slowly eaten up by the bus, mile by mile, inch by inch. The sun climbed up towards the center of the sky and then, from there, started its downward swing. Ellis rummaged around in their bag of convenience-store foods and started eating a sandwich that had been sitting warm for far too long to taste good.

The girl to their right, across the aisle, was fast asleep. She couldn't have been more than seventeen, fourteen when she had entered the camp; she had left at the same time as Nick and Ellis, having been in the same block. Even in sleep, her face was gaunt and ashen and haunted. She seemed to hit that deepest bedrock of sleep and lay there with the hard finality of a survivor, a girl who slept only because of the primal need to sleep. Sometimes a low sound like a cry came from her.

"Don't do that," Nick murmured at last, and Ellis looked up sharply.

"What?"

"Don't be running off into Nevada. It's fucking desert. You're too stupid to get around in a desert by yourself."

Ellis didn't answer. He slowly chewed his sandwich.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Come with me."

"Shit. That's what I said to begin with. Shit."

Nick smiled tiredly, and this made Ellis laugh.

* * *

Nick was drawn from his shallow sleep by the feel of warm, soft lips on his temple. He lifted his head off of the window, wincing at the crick in his neck, and rubbed at his forehead to stifle an incoming headache.

"Get on up," Ellis whispered to him. "We're in Nevada. It's the middle of the goddamn night, but we're here."

It was true. The sky was black and trembling with the shimmer of a million stars.

"Thank God," Nick muttered, getting up. The old injury in his leg burned and stiffened and for a moment he wasn't sure he would be able to walk, but then his feet moved and he was all right. Ellis walked ahead of him as they exited the bus, holding the two plastic bags that contained everything they had to their names.

"Reno," Ellis said quietly as they stepped onto the sidewalk. He turned his face skyward with bright, smiling eyes. "Well, shit. Ain't it beautiful?"

Nick stood and breathed in the sweet air of the city, realizing with a dull ache how much he had missed it, how long three years seemed after all he had accomplished. Some more basic part of him longed to go out and gamble while the sky was dark and his identity was anonymous, but he was tired and sore all over, and Ellis seemed to be dead on his feet. He swayed where he stood.

"Let's find a real bed to sleep in," Nick said, and the look in Ellis's eyes damn near made him cry.

"God, it sounds so good. I ain't been in one of those in a long time."

"My bank accounts should still be functioning. Hopefully." Nick sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. "Shit, do you remember anything they said about this?"

"Naw. Didn't even keep the papers."

"I thought as much. Come on."

They ran the bottoms of their standard-issue sneakers out walking through the city, finding the bank and explaining their situation (Ellis waved his quarantine button as proof, which really didn't impress the clerk at all), getting their money and signing up to receive another card, and then going to the hotel and paying in cash. The entire process took close on four hours, and it was nearly 5:00 in the morning when Ellis and Nick pushed open the door to their temporary home.

"Oh, God," Ellis kept saying. "Oh, God."

They didn't bother to undress, just fell into the same bed, even though there were two.

"What're we doin' tomorrow?" Ellis asked, his voice muffled by Nick's shoulder.

"Don't bother thinking about it, Overalls."

Ellis obediently fell silent; they both tumbled hard and fast into slumber. Nick had scattered dreams of dark, bloody nights, the sound of distant weeping, but even that soon faded into a final blackness.

* * *

They slept until noon, woke up simultaneously, snuggled close on top of the sheets. Nick could hear housekeeping just a few rooms over. Ellis looked at him with huge, soft eyes, and they drew him in, said so much more than words ever could, and this made Nick uneasy.

"Mornin'," Ellis said, clearly not ashamed to be curled up with him like this. He had a strange philosophy about private things, that a person can't ever be embarrassed by doing something where no one can see them.

Nick tried to pass for nonchalant. "Hi, Overalls. Sleep well?"

"Best sleep I had in years," Ellis purred, and a slow grin spread over Nick's face.

"That so?" His own voice pitched lower. Ellis squirmed a little in response.

"Yup." And he leaned up to kiss Nick, slow and gentle, and his mouth tasted less than pleasant because of his morning breath, and his skin was covered in dry sweat; Nick rolled him over and pinned him down hard into the bed until he laughed breathlessly and tugged on Nick's ears in that sweet, playful kind of way.

"Listen to you," Nick murmured between kisses. "Giggling."

"I ain't gigglin'," Ellis protested, reaching for Nick's zipper. "Come on, we gotta be quick, room service is comin'…"

"No." Nick's pleasant mood turned cold. He pulled away, removing Ellis's hand gently but firmly.

Ellis screwed up his nose in that way he did when he was confused, and it was clear that he was keeping himself from being too upset. "The hell do you mean, no?"

"I mean no."

"What for?"

Nick looked at him for a long while, his feminine face, his big brown eyes. He was filled with an alien sense of anger, not at Ellis, but at himself. He shoved out, knocking Ellis over, and Ellis cried, "Hey!" and pushed him back. They both stumbled to their feet, on the precipice of laughter or another fight, and in the end Nick folded with a weak, tired chuckle and slumped into this warm, accepting arms with a choked sound like a sob.

"Hey, now," Ellis said gently, not sure what to do with his hands. "What're you doin'?"

"Three years, Ellis… Three years in that fucking… fucking hellhole. "

"Shit." Ellis's voice clogged up a little now, too. "I know it. I know it."

"You know what I fucking miss? I miss it more than fucking _anything_."

"What?" Ellis was grinning.

"Fucking Chinese food."

"Oh, _God,_" Ellis moaned, his eyes brightening. "Did you know, Keith used to love Chinese food? Ate it all the time, until he got food poisinin'. That was awful stuff. Doctor said he lost three pints of blood, just by pukin'!"

Nick didn't mind the story, laughed halfway through it. "Let's go get some. Right now."

"For breakfast? That don't sound quite proper."

"Who gives a damn? Huh? Who's to tell us what we're supposed to eat anymore?"

"Nobody! Goddammit, nobody!"

"Damn fucking straight!"

Ellis let out a triumphant, shrieking whoop. He ran and opened the window and let the cold, polluted air of the city rush in; Nick saw his eyes glistening with tears, but it was good, it was freedom.

They instructed housekeeping not to bother, ran out to get their breakfast, and returned to eat it in their room. Nick promised himself that he would treat Ellis to an actual breakfast tomorrow.

They spent another night at the hotel. Ellis went swimming for the first time in close to four years, while Nick went out and earned them both nearly three grand.

"Tomorrow, we start hitching for Seattle," Nick said groggily in the earliest hours of the morning.

Ellis got out of his own bed and slipped into Nick's like a shadow, like a dream.

* * *

Neither of them was sure what to expect from this unsteady relationship they had created. Ellis seemed more eager to dive in than Nick. Nick felt the ghosts of old mistakes holding him back, and sometimes he became unnecessarily irritable with Ellis for being so willing – didn't he know? Didn't he know what could happen?

It was an accident, really, forged upon a combination of post-traumatic stress and loneliness. Having been holed up in the same tent with each other for three years brought them closer together than Nick had ever wanted or anticipated. And when Ellis had looked up at him in the middle of a game of cards and shyly kissed him, Nick knew he would never come back from those swirling black depths of commitment. And he didn't like it.

Ellis had staked a claim in him with the sharp edge of an unwanted reality.

They were walking side-by-side, now, down the road. Ellis kept trying to grab his hand, and Nick kept slapping him away.

"Quit. What the hell are you doing? You do that and the wrong pair of eyes sees us, the next car pulling over won't be a friendly ride."

"What, do you mean they'd like… molest us?"

"Shit, man. You're so goddamn ignorant. No, Ellis. No."

Ellis, wounded, popped a stick of gum in his mouth and smacked on it, staring at his feet as he stirred up dust and gravel. The walk was long and uncomfortable on that brim of winter cold, but in a way it was peaceful, and Nick was lulled by the pace and sound of his feet on the ground. The wind teased his hair.

They had nothing to their names, except for the small wallet with the money Nick had earned in Ellis's back pocket, the toothbrushes and the towel they had stolen from the hotel, and the plastic bag of snack food. They were dressed in their standard-issue jeans and T-shirts they had left with from the evacuation camp over in the Pacific. They had been shipped there from New Orleans, brought back on retired cruise ships, and sent out on buses across the clean half of the United States. Although the entire Eastern segment of the country was declared uninfected, the place was dead – rubble from top to bottom, devoid of life, heavily irradiated in a few places. They built up a wall to keep people out, and sometimes kids dashed across the border on a dare. Some of those kids never came back. Some came back with trophies of human skulls and hands and ribcages. There were still small outbreaks of the Infection, especially in the Midwest – where those curious kids would come back with the disease in their systems and bite their parents in a small town. Those families disappeared altogether. No one complained. It was inhumane, God was it ever, but it was necessary like war.

A car pulled onto the side of the road now, and a slim, short-haired girl leaned out the window. "We're not supposed to pick up strangers," she said, "but you don't look dangerous. Where are you headed?"

"Washington," Nick answered, keeping track of Ellis, who was distracted by a butterfly or something.

The girl looked between them thoughtfully. She was college-aged, the wrong type to be picking up strange men in the road, and Nick planned to tell her as much as soon as he was let off again. The driver, a chubby girl of the same age, bespectacled, smiled at them welcomingly.

"You queers, or what?" said the slimmer one. Her face was sharp and intelligent.

"Excuse me?" Ellis piped up.

"Who wants to know?" Nick asked warily.

"We do. Don't get all defensive, okay, we're lesbians."

"Oh." Nick looked them both over again, could see the traces of it in them, now – an innate recognition. From the looks in their eyes, they had the same sort of feeling about him, that subtle intuition. They had sleuthed him out, and it made him uncomfortable.

"We ain't queers," Ellis said from behind Nick, "but we're together. I'm not totally sure how that makes sense, but it makes sense."

Nick bit his lip to stop himself from contradicting Ellis. Now wasn't the time for petty fights. He just wanted a ride.

The driver laughed at them in a pleasant sort of way. "Well, get in the back seat, then. We're headed up to Northern California, so we can drop you by the border, if you want."

"I'm John, and this is Keith," Nick said as they piled into the back of the little red car. He had learned long ago it was better to leave no trace of your true identity when you're being picked up – just in case.

Ellis wasn't so bright. He blinked in confusion. "Are you goin' soft in the head, Nick?" he hissed. "I ain't Keith."

"Shut the fuck up, Overalls," Nick growled, and reached across him to pull shut the door.

The girls didn't seem to mind. They pulled back out into the left-hand lane. "I'm Tabitha," said the driver.

"Val," said the skinnier one. She reached back to them and shook their hands. "Pleasure to meet you. You going off to get married?"

"What?" Nick's voice pitched.

"Oh, well, Washington's all clear and legal again. So there are a lot of folks taking little road trips over to make it official. We've seen, what, Tabs? Like, five couples?"

"At least."

"Yeah."

"Sorry, it's been a while since we paid attention to the news," Nick said softly. He began to wish he had just turned down the ride the minute the girls announced that they were lesbians. No offense to them, but in Nick's experience the younger gays tended to get a bit preachy for his tastes. Though, they were much more explosive in bed.

"Don't sound right to me," Ellis was saying, rummaging around in the plastic bag for some candy.

"Are you Southern, Keith?"

"What?"

"Your accent."

"Oh right. Yeah. I'm from Savannah, Georgia." Then, as if he needed to elaborate for these Western city girls, "You know, like, right above Florida, and right of Alabama."

"Oh," Tabitha said, her voice going a little bit quiet. She glanced at him in the rear-view mirror, and her eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh! You're those people from the evacuation camps, aren't you?"

More than a little disturbed, Ellis answered shyly, "Yeah?"

"They said on the news you people were being released this month. Wow! Wow. That's so neat. Why are you going to Seattle, then, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I've got a place," Nick replied. He wanted to get off this track of conversation.

"Was it tough, surviving through that mess? We're reading about it in our history class, aren't we, Val?"

"Yeah. God, it sounds so awful. Did you have to shoot anybody?"

"Lots of folks," Ellis chimed in proudly. "We damn near swam through those fuckin' zombies, didn't we, Nick?"

Nick stared out the window. "Yeah," he said vaguely. He felt kind of sick.

"That must have been awful," Val said quietly. She was a sensitive girl, full of feeling.

"Sounds awesome to me," Tabitha rebutted, grinning. She seemed to be the more boyish of the two, meatier. Her mouth ran faster.

Nick listened to the rest of the conversation (Ellis answered everything with an innocent earnestness that was both endearing and obnoxious, from details about the taste of blood to what sort of music they listened to in the camp), and over the next several hours he gathered that they called the event The Outbreak of 2013. It sounded so textbook. What had seemed to Nick to be an apocalypse, a painful struggle for his very life, full of horror and death and panic, was to these Northern girls only a legend, a story – like the stories of Bird Flu across the ocean. Something that caused a brief panic, and then was eventually forgotten, even though thousands of lives were lost. It was clean to them, sterile.

Nick would never forget the feeling of sloshing through knee-deep swampwater, nerves screaming at every sound, the image of another person with a face mottled with infection and blood and decay, the feeling of the shotgun kicking back and blood spraying his face like hot water. He would never forget it.

The sun was setting as the car slowed and pulled into a rest stop. Ellis was asleep on Nick's shoulder.

"I guess this is where we part ways," said Val. "It's a shame. You're a couple of really cool guys."

"Thanks for the ride," Nick answered. "You probably shouldn't pick up strange men on the road, though. You're too young."

Tabitha cocked an eyebrow. "Listen," she said, but then decided against it. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

"Here…" Val scribbled something on a pink sticky note and slapped it to Nick's leg, where it stuck. "That's my myspace page. Add me. I'd really love to hear more about you guys. From what Ellis says, it sounds like you've got some amazing stories."

"We do." Nick turned to nudge Ellis awake; Ellis moaned and pressed his face deeper into Nick's shoulder. Nick rolled his eyes. "Come on, Overalls. Rise and shine."

"I don't want to hitchhike no more," Ellis mumbled.

"We don't have a choice. Come on."

They piled out of the car, waving goodbye to the lesbian duo as they peeled out and drove away. Nick crumpled the sticky note and tossed it.

"They was some awful nice folks," Ellis said to Nick, smiling. His eyes caught in the brilliant burning glow of the sunset, reminded Nick of fire. "I think they liked us."

Nick, for no particular reason, felt the overwhelming urge to kiss him. He swallowed it back and started down the stretch of highway, thumb held out, and Ellis followed, singing softly under his breath.

The sun sank in increments, counting the seconds of their freedom and etching them in stone and light.

* * *

Nick's watch copped out and he had no idea what time it was when they finally crossed into Washington and stumbled into a lonely little hotel on the roadside. The last truck they had hitched in smelled strongly of cinnamon (a kindly old lady named Irma with sweet green eyes and a kitten named Leopold who took an unnatural liking to Ellis), so Nick took a shower. Ellis liked the smell and didn't mind reeking of it, and so he sat and flipped through channels on the television, his eyes drooping with exhaustion.

"God, this place smells of piss," Nick said as he shuffled out of the bathroom, ruffling his hair underneath a towel. "I'm beat."

"There ain't nothin' on but porn and commercials," Ellis informed him. His voice had that stepped slowness that signaled how close he was to sleep. "Wanna watch some porn?"

Nick laughed. "Maybe later."

Ellis's eyes seemed to harden, and he pursed his lips together just briefly – but it was enough to alert Nick that he was upset. He turned back to flipping channels, nostrils flaring.

"What?" Nick snapped. "What's your malfunction?"

"Nothin'. Ain't nothin'. I hate to be a downer."

"Whatever." Nick tugged on his boxers and laid down in the bed.

Ellis was quiet for a little while before he sighed and thrust the remote down on the carpet. "It's just… God dammit. Why are you so damn complicated for?"

"Me? _I'm_ complicated?"

"Yeah! Yeah, you _are_."

"What the fuck am I complicated about?"

Ellis made some vague, pointless flailing motion in order to express his dissatisfaction. "You can't go around kissin' folk and then turnin' round and sayin' they can't hold hands or do nothin' like normal boys do when they're sweet on someone. It ain't right! And I don't get it, cause Jesus Christ, I ain't never met someone so backwards as you."

Nick didn't answer. He rolled over with an annoyed grunt, turning his back on his roommate. "Go to sleep, Ellis."

"I just don't get it! What do you want me to do?"

"Shut up. Okay? Shut up."

Ellis cussed and launched the remote control across the room. After a minute, he got to his feet and went to pick it up. "Don't know what a body's supposed to do with somethin' like you. Every time I turn round it seems all good and then you turn like some wild hog," he was muttering. "I should of hopped off in Nevada."

Nick pretended to be asleep. It was easier than apologizing.

* * *

When the sun's brilliant light woke Nick up, he was acutely aware of Ellis's absence. He fought the cobwebby blanket of under-sleep, pushing aside the headache that ticked in the right side of his brain, looking around the fogged, empty room; he wasn't aware of it straight off, but his breathing spiked and sped off, hitching in his throat with audible energy.

"Overalls?" he called, his voice barely above a whisper. Shit, he had really pissed him off, hadn't he? Ellis was dumb enough to just run off in the night if he was angry, and he was just cute and unassuming enough to get himself into some serious trouble in the middle of nowhere like this…

"_Overalls_?"

"What?"

Nick snapped around and saw Ellis exiting the bathroom, his face damp from shaving, his eyes rimmed by dark circles. Seeing the look on Nick's face, Ellis's eyebrows shot up, and the irritable scowl he had been wearing evaporated.

"Nick, what happened?"

"Shit, I thought you were gone," Nick said on a rush of air. He smiled, didn't want to admit the warm pressure of relief swelling in his chest. "Thank Christ."

"Did you have a bad dream, or what? Oddball."

"I guess I did. Come here."

Ellis hesitated, tugging on the hem of his T-shirt, before he obediently came forward. He stopped at the end of the bed, tilting his head uncertainly; Nick urged him forward, and he came up on his hands and knees. Nick surged to meet him, surprising him, pressing a gentle kiss to his nose.

"Quit it," Ellis scolded, his ears turning pink. "What's got into you?"

"Shut up. Shut up, shut up." Nick grabbed Ellis's head in his hands and kissed his mouth over and over, until Ellis shuddered and relaxed into it, submitted, moaning sweetly, pressing forward. They lay back together on the bed, just kissing each other softly, slowly, deeply, until Ellis started trying to talk into it and Nick had to bite him to make him stop.

When it was over, Ellis smiled at Nick dazedly and said around his kiss-red lips, "Are you gonna be right and civil now?"

"No. Get ready to leave in ten minutes."

Ellis scowled at him, but did as he was told. The conflict, the contradiction was back and strong. He was sulky the rest of the way to Seattle, even when Nick provided him a bountiful amount of doughnuts, but he'd change his tune soon enough.

* * *

"I don't like to stay in the house," Nick said as they meandered through the winter-swept residential section. "It was set up more as a back-up plan – Cookie's idea, you know? She left me the house and took everything else, and I guess that worked out for me in the end, now, didn't it. But it's not very… home-like, so you probably won't like it."

"I don't mind," Ellis murmured, dragging his feet. "I guess I ought to be grateful to be havin' a home at all."

Nick could sense that he was still wounded over that morning, but he wasn't about to get into it. "I suppose we'll need to clean the shit out of the place, too."

"I'm good at cleanin'."

"And we'll need to go get some groceries."

"I'm a good shopper."

"And I guess we should get some clothes, too." Nick glanced over at Ellis, who was watching him in a sidelong kind of way, and said with a grin, "I can't have my partner looking like a goddamn slob, now, can I?"

"Shit," Ellis replied with a shy smile. "I don't mind none."

"Well, I do. You're messing up my image, kid. Are you going to go and get a job?"

"If I can find a garage that'll take me."

"I know I wouldn't," Nick teased, and for a moment he wasn't sure if Ellis would take it right, but then he laughed and it was all right.

The wind picked up, biting with the chilly hints of winter, and the two of them unconsciously pressed closer together as they walked; Ellis reached again for Nick's hand, and Nick jerked his arm away, putting his fists in his pockets. They fell silent, estranged and united, walking towards the same goal on parallel tracks that would eventually have to converge.

* * *

They spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the house – this they agreed to without speaking, but simply by mutual acceptance of the chore. Ellis kept opening the windows, and Nick kept closing them, but other than that they rarely crossed paths, working autonomously on what needed to be fixed.

"Your pipes are gone all to hell," Ellis informed him. "Keep sputterin' and such."

"That's what you get for not using them for five years," Nick replied, not looking up from where he was sweeping out the inside of the kitchen cupboards. He was a very cleanly man by nature, and the smaller details did not escape him as they escaped most men – he would not rest until every cobweb was banished. It had driven Cookie mad, when she had been married to him.

"What do you suggest I do?"

"Let them run, dumbass."

Muttering, Ellis left again. He returned after about ten minutes and started lobbing wet washcloths at him from across the room like tiny cannonballs.

"Incomin'! Preeowwhhh! Cphrrrrssh!"

Nick looked up sharply, and Ellis must have seen the tenseness of his shoulders, because his eyes grew wide and he started saying in a laughing voice, "Don't you dare, don't you dare!" but Nick was already on his feet and lunging for him, bringing him cackling and squealing to the floor.

"No! No!" Ellis yowled. "Git your paws off of me!"

It felt good to do something, to run and yell and handle things that were his again. Nick had almost forgotten what it was like, to be in his own home, to laugh with abandon. They rolled back and forth on the floor, grappling for power, but Ellis was the stronger of the two and soon won out, pinning Nick hard against the floorboards and grinning in triumph. They both labored to breathe, tangled.

"You got all sorts of dirt in your hair," Ellis told Nick.

"What do you want for dinner?" Nick replied.

"Hamburgers," Ellis answered, his voice husky. "Three of 'em. With bacon in 'em and everythin'."

"Fine. Fine, we'll have hamburgers."

"Awful kind of you."

And then they were, quiet, looking at each other, Nick's back pressed against the cold hardwood floors of the home he had paid off for with his own ill-gotten money. Ellis sat up off of him, but still sat on his legs, so that Nick could only prop himself up on his elbows and kiss his shoulder, his neck, his Adam's apple.

"Why haven't I fucked you yet?" Nick muttered thoughtfully, running the flat of his hand up Ellis's broad thigh. The skin trembled under his touch.

"Don't know," Ellis replied, head lolling.

"Get off of me."

Ellis did with haste, and stood before him expectantly, his eyes bright. Nick slowly got to his feet and looked him over, his mouth dry, and God was he full of wanting. For a moment, just a second, the air between them was painfully transparent.

Nick turned away and started picking up the washcloths. Disappointment washed over Ellis's face, uncensored.

"Guess I'll go back to cleaning out the bathroom," he mumbled, and walked back down the hallway.

Nick kicked out at the back of the couch with a growling curse, hurting his foot.

* * *

"Why are you so goddamned patient?"

Ellis blinked at him and shrugged in that easy, unassuming way he did. He took a bite out of his hamburger. "I think I can be damned impatient when it comes to somethin' other than people."

"It's not always charming." Nick stared at his food, not hungry. Ellis chuckled.

"Yeah? Well, neither are you. But I guess we're stuck, now, ain't we?"

They were, trapped in a cold place between heaven and hell.

"Ellis…"

"Naw, don't think 'bout it. My Ma always told me that whatever the Lord intends to happen will happen. Keith… Heh. Keith always used to say, the Lord had it in for him most of everyone."

"We've waded through some thick shit, Ellis."

"Don't I know it."

Nick took a listless bite, barely tasting it. Behind his eyes, he saw the bodies floating downriver, bloated and bloody, heard the hysterical laughter of Coach as he peeled hair off of his axe with slow monotony. There were things that time and therapy could never completely rub clean, the darker, filthier places of the mind, hidden in the deepest crevices.

Their hands were raw from soap and scrubbing. That night, they lay together without touching, dreamed of water and the long staggered line of the highway, how the strips seemed to meet in the distance yet never collided.

* * *

"I still ain't used to havin' a bathroom where a body ain't within arm's reach of you," Ellis said one morning, attracted by the smell of eggs. He didn't know that Nick had burned two batches already.

"It's weird, to me, to wake up in the night to a sound, and not have it be a fucking zombie," Nick said softly. He turned off the stove and laid cheese on top of the steaming eggs.

Ellis tugged a shirt on over his head. "You wake up in the night, too?"

"All the time." Nick scowled at himself. "Here." He handed over a plate of eggs to Ellis.

"Thank you kindly," Ellis said with a thoughtful smile, sitting down at the little glass table Cookie had picked out.

Nick sat across from him and put his head in his hand, picking at his breakfast. "Sometimes, I panic when I'm out in the city and I get surrounded by people."

Ellis looked at him with soft eyes. "You don't gotta tell me this. You're a private kind of guy, it's all right."

"No. I guess we're not all as strong as we say."

"No, I guess not." Ellis smiled faintly and started eating again. "Ain't you just full of surprises?"

"I'm full of something," Nick replied, and Ellis guffawed.

"Today, I figure I'll go lookin' for a job," he said. "If you want to come with me?"

"Sure. Sure, why not."

That morning was full of warmth and companionship. Nick felt more at peace than he had in a long time, as if he were on the edge of sleep, buoyed by the waters of an early, gentle dream.

Ellis tried to hold his hand as they walked down the street. By the time Nick noticed, he decided it wasn't worth the bother, and let him do it.

* * *

"Look at this pretty one," said Lee. He was a big man, dark-skinned, with narrow hips and broad shoulders like a fighter.

"He doesn't look like he could lift a fuckin' thing," sniped Douglas. His head was shaved, and he was pale like milk.

"Me and my buddy Keith used to own our own garage back in Savannah," Ellis said defensively, scuffing his shoe on the concrete. "What before the zombies came, n' all."

"Shit, man," Lee growled. "You're one of those refugees, ain't you?"

"What about it?" Nick snapped. "Huh? He's just as good with a wrench, if not better, than you fucking monkeys."

"Who are you calling a monkey, faggot?" Lee's shoulders shifted upwards, warning him of the direction this conversation was heading.

"We don't want you or your goddamn infection in our garage," Douglas chimed in. "Anyways, we don't like fags, neither."

"I ain't no fag," Ellis mumbled, but the fight was already out of him. "Do you hear?"

"Who's this candy-ass, then?" Lee thumbed at Nick, who bristled.

"You'd better not have called me a fucking candy-ass, you pussy. Who do you think you are?"

"Let it alone, Nick, they said they didn't want me," Ellis said, tugging at his sleeve. "Come on."

"Yeah," said Douglas, drawing out his voice in an obnoxiously false interpretation of Ellis's accent. "Git along, lil' doggy, git on back to Brokeback now!"

Nick picked up a wrench and launched himself at Douglas's naked skull, sending him scrambling backwards with a yell. That hard metal missed by inches; Douglas's weight sent him sprawling to the ground, but he picked himself back up.

"Hey, man! Fuck, chill out!"

"Get the fuck out of here!" Lee roared. He lumbered forward with his fists raised in warning. "Go on, or I'll fucking fix you!"

Ellis tugged again at Nick's jacket. "Come on, man. Come on, come on."

Nick spat at their feet; Lee socked him across the nose with a rumbling sound like a Charger.

"_Get out_!"

Nick jerked towards him, but Ellis snagged him and pulled him again, and finally he left, dabbing at his nose with his thumb and muttering under his breath.

"Motherfuckers," he growled. "Talking to you like that… You should have let me take them. Fuck."

Ellis laughed, but it was a high, nervous sound. "It ain't changed much over three years, has it, Nick?"

Nick didn't answer. He pinched his bleeding nose and stared up into the infinite sky. His breath formed puffs of mist in front of his face.

"Let's go home for today," Ellis murmured, trying again. "I'm tuckered out."

"Fine. Fine."

* * *

Suddenly, he was alone. The fog rolled in from the river, swallowed up the trees and the purr of the insects and the rustling of the trees. The water pulsed around his legs like blood from the heart of a living beast. All around there was stillness.

Nick hung onto the shotgun, even though the metal burned his skin, bit into it with a heat from hell. He called into the whiteness, the wet pressure, but there was no answering yell. Something shifted, black and impossibly huge, behind the protective screen of condensation, and Nick felt afraid, so very afraid, and sick.

He felt something slithering around his feet, looked down; he was wearing the dress, that little red dress that had belonged to his mother. All at once he was five years old, hip-deep in the swamp water, sobbing for his Mommy, so sorry, so goddamn sorry, he would never do it again – and the dye seeped from the fabric, spread around in the abruptly stagnant water like blood, blacker and thicker until it was like burned glass. From behind the freezing layer there were a million faces, mouths gaping, eyes white with infection, screaming for the lives he had taken.

Ellis was there, deeper into the mud that sucked Nick's feet up to his ankles. Ellis was screaming. Nick reached for him, and the gun turned into snakes, a million writhing snakes, hissing and thrusting with their needle-like fangs dripping venom that burned his skin until it mottled and swelled and popped like cooked sausage. Nick screamed, launched them hissing and squirming into the abyss, and he heard his father speaking, felt the phantom impact of a hundred angry fists, a hundred apologies.

The sound of crunching bone, hands clawing from the mist.

* * *

Nick surfaced from sleep screaming, his skin clammy and drenched in sweat, tears filling his eyes with salt.

Ellis leaned over him and peppered his face with tender kisses, shushing up, stroking him back from the freezing depths of horror. "You're all right, you're okay," he said over and over and over in that sweet, whispering voice. "Don't you cry no more, now, shhh… Poor darlin', you're okay."

For some reason, Nick couldn't stop making this constant choking sound, like a strangled gasp; he struggled to sit up and then hunched, shaking, in the cool silk sheets. When he had bought those sheets, Ellis had been wary of them, unused to anything quite so extravagant. Nick saw his hands like pale spiders against the navy material, and he retched once but brought up nothing.

Uncertainly, Ellis rubbed his back, kissing Nick's sweat-damp temple and sleep-mussed hair. "You're all right, ain't you? What was you dreamin' of?"

"Quit," Nick rasped, blindly moving his hand to push Ellis back. "Stop touching me, stop…"

Ellis didn't stop. He moved forward and circled his arms around Nick's naked shoulders, pressing his face into the broad plane of his chest, breath winding warm and gentle over Nick's stomach. "I'm tired of you pullin' away," he said quietly against Nick's skin. "I'm forgivin', but a man can only take so much."

"God dammit, Ellis!" Nick exploded, and got his hands on him, shoved him hard enough to nearly knock him off the bed. Some deeper part of him felt immediately sorry, but panic overrode every particle of his mind. "Stop! Stop your fucking… just… Stop _touching_ me!"

"Quit your yellin' at me! Damn, you're so yellow!"

"Don't you _know_? Don't you _know_ what happens, Ellis?"

"No! No, I guess I don't know." Ellis started to get out of bed, heading for the door – God knew where he thought he was going, really, in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar city half-dressed, but he was walking with swift, angry determination.

"El –"

Ellis whipped around to look at him, and Nick had never seen that reflective quality to his eyes before. "I should of got off in Nevada," Ellis growled. "I can't hardly _stand_ you. You're so goddamn cold."

Nick felt words pushing up from his insides, but they wouldn't come. He got to his feet and started towards Ellis, and his feet seemed to move faster than his mind even though the world was painfully slow, the air thick like syrup, resisting every motion. In slow motion, Ellis backed up, the rims of his eyes reddening with the threshold of tears, and he said, "No, no, no," as Nick pressed a kiss to his mouth, pinned him there against the wall like a moth on a corkboard.

Ellis made a sound like a cry, as if he was on the verge of weeping, but he kissed back with vigor and something darker, needier. His nails dug hard into Nick's scalp – had they ever been so long?

"This isn't an apology," Nick whispered between frantic kisses, "but God, I'm sorry."

"Stop, stop," Ellis moaned, hiding his face in Nick's shoulder as Nick shoved down his boxers and lifted his shirt. "Wait, wait… No, don't stop…"

Nick chuckled into his ears. "Don't stop? You sure?"

"Yes, I think." Ellis's answer was a puff of air. He arched against the wall and Nick used the leverage to lift him up, and Ellis got his legs around his waist with a strength that spoke of never letting go. They both started laughing, a tired, relieved kind of noise, as Nick spun them around and guided them unsteadily back to the safety of the bed. They fell onto it, and it wasn't perfect, but it was good.

"Overalls, Overalls… God, Ellis, so sorry…"

Ellis held his face and kissed him, pulled out everything that needed to be said and swallowed every answer whole, until Nick was drained and stripped of everything, everything.

Quietly, with an honesty that could not be expressed in words, Nick took him, claimed him, until they stood on equal ground, belonging to each other and owning each other. The sun began to rise, and they fell asleep, entwined.

Nick wasn't sure what the morning held, but he had no dreams, no nightmares. For once, the world was silent upon this convergent point.

- **the end**


End file.
